Taji's Syndrome (24 page)

“I’ll tell my staff,” said Sam. “Anything else?”

“Not right now, thanks. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He hung up and dialed Harper Ross’ lab number, and was rewarded by a grad student who gave the phone to Harper at once.

“Jeff!” Harper said. “Any progress on your front?”

“No, and that’s what I want to talk to you about,” said Jeff. “It’s pure speculation at this stage, and three of my colleagues think I’m crackers, but . . .” He broke off. “I ought to tell you some bad news first, I suppose.”

“The world’s full of bad news,” said Harper. “Go on. Then get back to what you called me about.” He sounded patient, but as he listened to Jeff, his eyes grew cold. “I don’t think thanks is the right word, but I appreciate your telling me. God, what a rotten thing to have happen.”

“And it will happen more and more until we track this thing down,” said Jeff. He knew he could not take every death personally, but the urge was there and it took more will than he wanted to admit to resist it. “About this other thing.”

“Go on,” said Harper.

“I think it’s time we did some real detective work, some backtracking. You’ve lost a son to . . . TS, but the rest of your family appears to be okay for the time being. I want. to have them checked out, complete workups, scans, the lot of it. I want to get as much material on this as we can. I want to find out who can get this stuff and why, and who can’t. I want as many comparisons as possible, as complete medical histories as possible. Is there any way we can do this?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” said Harper, his voice thoughtful.

“I want this thing backtracked to the first cases we saw of it, and I want all similarities, no matter how obscure, noted and cross-checked. I want any fact, no matter how trivial or unrelated, to be supported and documented. Damn it, there is something we are overlooking, something basic that we haven’t seen. If we can get material on every family where there has been a death, we might begin to make some headway.”

“You came to the right place.” Harper was more energetic now, his words were clipped and eager. “What we don’t know about medicine, we do know about criminology and learning to identify and trace clues and facts. I’ll put my grad students on it, if you’ll give us access to your records.”

“Certainly,” said Jeff. “I’ll need about an hour to set it up, but by then it should be possible for you to tap into the system. Drucker will object, but I’ll make sure that won’t stop us.”

“How?” asked Harper, fascinated by the machinations that went into this investigation.

“I’ll go over his head. He won’t like it, but that doesn’t bother me at present.” He made a note to himself. “The person you’re to talk to in Atlanta is Susannah Ling. She’ll arrange everything.” As he said her name he was surprised to discover that he was missing her.

“Ling? Any relation?” Harper asked.

“No relation.” He wondered if the Vice-President had ever been asked if he were related to Susannah Ling of Atlanta and the National Center for Disease Control? Probably not, he conceded.

“I’ll call in ninety minutes, just in case,” said Harper. “I’m glad you’re finally giving me something useful to do. I’ve felt as if my wheels were spinning for the last two weeks.”

“Okay. I’ll want daily reports while you work on this,” he continued. “Collate everything, cross-reference and flag.”

“You bet. Just as soon as we get information.” Harper had lost his distracted tone entirely.

By the time they hung up, Jeff was half-convinced that he might be on to something. As he placed his call to Susannah, he hoped she would agree.

“How’s Portland?” she asked after the first exchange of greeting.

“Damp. Listen, Susannah, I need a favor.” Saying this made his mouth dry.

“What is it?”

“I’d like to get all the information we have on the victims and their families transferred to Seattle. I know there might be difficulty with the Privacy Act, but there are provisions for waiving that in cases of emergency.” He was pleading and they both knew it.

“I think I can justify invoking emergency medical privilege. What are you looking for?” She did not sound harried or pressured, though Jeff knew that she was both.

“I wish I knew. That’s why I want all the material. I hope there’s a key in all the facts that . . .” He did not know how to go on.

“Is this for Doctor Klausen?”

“No, for Doctor Ross in Seattle, at the University of Washington.” He realized he was not being entirely accurate, for Harper’s degree was a Ph.D., not a medical degree.

“Research lab?” guessed Susannah.

“Yeah, and willing grad students,” said Jeff.

“Always useful,” she agreed. “I’ll start the paperwork right away. The ESD might want a statement from you as to the necessity of the information; get one off to me sometime today.”

“I will,” he promised. “What’s it like in Atlanta?”

“Warm,” she said. “Lots of flowers. Three blocks of Peachtree were tied up last night—there’s a movie company in town. Are you going to buy me dinner when you get back?”

It took Jeff a moment to realize what she had said. “Dinner? I—”

“Say yes before I lose my nerve,” she insisted.

“Yes,” he said at once. “Tell me where you want to go. I’d be happy to see you. One warning,” he added as an afterthought.

“What?”

“I might not be very good company.” He tapped the receiver twice. “I want you to know that.”

“Two glasses of pinot grigio should take care of that. Do Persians drink?” A giggle sputtered.

“This Persian does. My family isn’t Muslim, it’s Orthodox.”

“I didn’t realize you were Jewish,” she said, clearly confused.

“Not Jewish Orthodox, Armenian Christian Orthodox. It’s a long story.” He hesitated. “I’ll tell you all about it over dinner, if you like.”

“Good—I don’t want to talk shop any more.” It was her first actual concession to the strain of her work. “I’ll make sure your Doctor Ross can get his material. And I’ll look for your statement.”

“Fine.” He was beginning to hope that there might be a way to avert the worst of the epidemic he could see emerging. “And thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Call me when you know something.” She was about to hang up. “Take care of yourself, Jeff.”

“You, too,” he said quietly, and hung up before she said good-bye; a farewell was too final for him now.

When Max Klausen woke up, night had fallen and there had been eight more admissions to the hospital for TS, three of them nurses. These patients were put in the critical-care wing instead of the quarantine wing because there were no more beds available in quarantine, in this or the other sixteen major hospitals in Portland.

“You talked to Sam?” asked Max when he had showered, shaved and got into the change of clothes he kept at his office.

“Yes,” said Jeff. “And Harper. They send condolences.”

“Uh-huh,” said Max, averting his face. “That’s good of them.”

“I’ve put Harper to work on a new project. I’m having him collate information for us.”

“What kind of information?” Max adjusted the knot of his tie.

“Every kind of information we have about all the victims and their families. I’m hoping we’ll discover a pattern.” Hearing himself talk, Jeff felt that his position was weak, his goal so vague and ill-defined that there was no way he could learn anything of use.

“What kind of pattern?” Max asked reasonably.

“Damned if I know.” Jeff sat on the corner of the desk. “I’ve been thinking that it could be that we have not a toxin, or even a couple of toxins, but a bacterium or virus that uses the toxin as a springboard, or the other way around.”

“You mean that the disease is contagious?” Max asked.

“Or infectious,” said Jeff somberly.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Max told him after a brief silence.

“Nor do I,” Jeff said.

“Either the disease lowers the resistance to the toxin,” Max said, thinking aloud, “or the toxin eliminates resistance to the disease. Either way—”

“Either way it’s risky.”

Max looked at him with desolate eyes. “Risky? You mean deadly.”

—Dien Paniagua, Wilson Landholm and Jeff Taft—

It was unseasonably warm in Twin Falls and the windows of the local office of the State Board of Health and Environment were open; the chill that pervaded the meeting had nothing to do with the glorious weather.

“So in the Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana areas, we can now assume more than a thousand cases,” said Dien Paniagua. “We’re looking for more cases, perhaps ones that haven’t yet been reported.”

“I know the feeling,” said Wil Landholm. “We’ve stopped all sports programs in the state for the time being—I wish we could persuade the others to do the same.” He looked over at the secretary who was recording their conversation, since it was official and would be entered in formal records.

“Our department has tried to find a way to determine how great the risks are, but so far we haven’t been very successful.” Dien looked at her watch. “The doc from Atlanta should have been here fifteen minutes ago.”

“Maybe his plane was late,” Wil suggested, resisting the urge to add his complaints to hers.

“He ought to call,” she insisted, then shook her head. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m very tired. I’m worried about Dan Vitale.”

“Someone special?” Wil asked, trying awkwardly to make conversation until Dr. Taji arrived.

“We work together. He went to the hospital two days ago. They think it’s TS. Two members of his family have it already.” She took out her handkerchief and blew her nose. “He’s the third person in our office to get it.”

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” said Wil, then went on, “This disease is supposed to be toxic in origin, but I wonder. I agreed with that at first, but I don’t anymore. Now I think that it’s communicable beyond the toxins.” He got up and walked down the length of the large office they had been provided for the conference with Dr. Taji. “You think you know how you’ll handle something like this. You think you’ve got the perspective. Then it happens and you don’t have any perspective at all after a while, and you don’t have the foggiest notion how to handle it. I remember watching a boxing match when I was in the Navy. This guy was getting beaten, but he couldn’t fall down. He stood there, and took blow after blow after blow. I’m starting to feel like him, and that’s nothing compared to what the victims go through.”

“I am afraid,” Dien admitted simply. “All the time now.”

“So am I,” said Wil, doing his best to ignore the secretary. “Look, when this is over, let’s you and me go get a cup of coffee. I have to talk to someone and I guess you do, too.”

“Yes,” said Dien. “I’d like that.” She blew her nose again, saying, “It must be allergies.”

“Un-huh,” Wil said.

“With the weather so warm.” Her face was composed but her hands shook as she opened her purse and took out a small vial of pills. “I really do have allergies,” she said.

“Lots of people do,” Wil told her.

She poured herself a glass of water from the carafe provided for the meeting, and as she swallowed the pill, she heard brisk footsteps in the hall.

“Finally,” said Wil, looking at his watch again.

Jeff Taji was carefully dressed as always, but his face was haggard and there were thumbprint-sized smudges under his eyes. He handed his attaché case to the secretary and said, “Forgive my late arrival. There was fog in Portland and it delayed our takeoff by half an hour.” He looked from Wil to Dien. “Doctor Paniagua, Doctor Landholm.” Each shook hands with him. “I’m grateful you’re willing to meet with me this way. It seemed there was no other means to get around Doctor Blair. Who
is
that fellow, anyway?”

Both Wil and Dien became guarded, and Dien said, “He’s my superior,” without inflection.

“I hope I won’t offend you if I say that he’s an irresponsible physician,” Jeff told them both. “I don’t mean to tread on toes, but Doctor Corwen Blair is a menace.”

Both Wil and Dien relaxed visibly. “He’s difficult,” Dien agreed.

“He’s a self-serving hack,” Wil said at the same time. Jeff drew up a chair, looking at the secretary. “You may delete that, if you wish.”

The woman, her features rigid with disapproval, said, “I can’t do that, Doctor Tahi.”

“That’s zhe, not heh. I’m Persian, not Spanish.” He opened his case and took out a stack of printouts. “You’ve already got the most recent material from Portland, at least you ought to have.”

“It got here this morning. There’s an awful lot of it,” Dien said.

“Yes. And now I’m going to give you some more.” He handed each of them a stack of papers. “I’m afraid that we’re off on the wrong foot with this disease, and I’m hoping you can help me prove it. I realize these questionnaires can’t be completely filled out by every patient you see, and certainly some of the information isn’t available, but I hope you’ll be willing to make an attempt at getting the information I’m looking for.”

Wil was going through the forms, brow furrowed. “There’s an awful lot of questions here, and they cover—”

“Some rather strange ground?” Jeff finished for him. “Yes. I’m toying with the theory that there is a communicable disease that is triggered by an environmental toxin—that seems to be the best bet so far. There may also be a genetic factor, but at this time that still looks like a long shot.”

“Why didn’t you just send these to us? Why are you visiting us personally?” Wil moved closer to Dien and regarded Jeff with a measuring look.

“For a number of reasons, actually,” said Jeff. “One of them is psychological expediency. If you have me here face-to-face and can ask questions directly there is a much greater chance that you’ll cooperate with me in my secondary investigation. Frankly, I need all the help I can get. Another reason is that I want to make a few direct observations myself, not only of you, but of the circumstances here, which is why I want to see the quarantine wings of the three community hospitals before I fly back to Portland tonight.”

“We could send you a videotape and you could have spared yourself the trips to the hospital.” Wil was not going to let Jeff off the hook easily.

“That’s true, but you and I know videotape isn’t the same thing as a room with a human being in it. I can get a very good impression from the videotape, but it will only be an impression.” He paused. “I trust what I feel far more than I trust images on a videotape and two miles of printouts.”